


Evergreen, Everfree

by BloodAnchor



Category: Gravity Falls, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Genre: Crossover
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-20
Packaged: 2018-12-31 09:26:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12129462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BloodAnchor/pseuds/BloodAnchor
Summary: After Pinkie Pie falls down a well, she finds herself in a strange, mystical land known as Oregon.





	1. Extraordinary Exchanges

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to Fimfiction.net under the name of Bok, and on fanfiction.net under the name Dead Decoy.

Pinkie Pie was taking a nap, dreaming about eating every last cake in Equestria as her leg involuntarily twitched from the actions of running away from the dreaded cake police. She was completely oblivious to the outside world, and did not know Gummy was standing on the window on his hind legs, looking out at the Everfree Forest. You wouldn't know it from looking at him, but he was capable of thought.

Sort of. His tiny reptile brain could process roughly one thought at a time, but the current one floating through his mind roared louder than any dragon: Must go. Gummy clawed at the windows furiously, leaving a giant patch of scratch marks before moving onto hitting the window with his head, which did more damage to his skull than the glass.

Gummy didn't know the concept of frustration; he didn't really know the concept of anything. But he did know that he had to get outside and into that big patch of green beyond the strange invisible barrier that impeded him. After one particularly forceful headbutt, Gummy fell away from the window, landing on his back. He squeaked and struggled a bit before righting himself in the direction of the room's door, which seemed different.

The alligator called upon every brain cell to solve the mystery of the changed door and after several minutes intense thinking he arrived at the conclusion that it was slightly ajar, giving him the escape route he needed. He waddled his way to freedom, his owner ignorant to his escape.

"No, officer, not candy jail. Anything but..." Pinkie stirred in her sleep before bolting up, covered in sweat and panting. She checked her hooves to make sure they weren't bound in frosting hoofcuffs and giggled, "Heh heh heh. Got away again."

The entire room suddenly began shaking, which was accompanied by a loud growl. Still laying on her back, Pinkie glanced at her tummy, "Hmm. I haven't had a Triple Tooti Terror Tricky Twist Taffy in a few days. That should make Mr. Stomach happy!"

The pink pony twirled off the bed and landed on the floor in a faux-ballerina pose. She gave herself a 7/10; needed more fireworks.

"Gummy!" she called, "Let's go get some dinner!"

Normally this would have prompted the small alligator to attack her with his harmless gumline of missing teeth, but her pet remained mysteriously absent.

Pinkie broke away from her pose, "Gummy?" she asked as she began pacing around the room and checking all his favorite hiding spots.

She checked under the bed, "Gummy?"

She checked the curtains, "Gummmmmmy!"

She opened the closest, "Gummy the Gumminator!"

Pinkie closed the closet doors and shrugged, "Must've gone down the stairs by himself!"

She happily trotted down to the first floor, where Mr. and Mrs. Cake were busy preparing some lavish confection, "Hi Mr. and Mrs. Cake! Have you seen Gummy?"

Mr. Cake shook his head, "Can't say that I have."

"Mrs. Cake?"

"Sorry dearie, I haven't. Did you check the closet?"

"Uh huh."

"Oh my. You don't think he could have gotten out, do you?"

Pinkie waved the suggestion away, "Nah. I always make sure to the close the door. My room is a fortress! Locked in a super fortress!"

"Well, the wind could have blown it open. It has been a bit brisk today."

Pinkie gasped and ran upstairs to see her door cracked, leaving just enough space for a certain baby alligator to get through.

"GUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMMMMMYYYYYYYYYYYY!"

* * *

Pinkie moved at insane speeds as she grabbed and interrogated every pony in town to Gummy's whereabouts.

"Have you seen Gummy?"

"Have you seen Gummy?"

One pony was about to eat soup at a restaurant when she burst out of the bowl, "Tell me you've seen Gummy!"

Her leads were quickly running dry as she reached the edge of the town. She sat on her rump and yelled to the heavens, "Gummy! Where are you!?" before unleashing a torrent of tears. Pinkie watered the ground for a good while before she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned around with wet eyes to see Time Turner.

"Uh, is that Gummy?" he said, pointing toward the Everfree Forest. Just at the edge was a small, green blob moving in an unmistakable gait.

Pinkie's sorrows were gone immediately. "Gummy!" she squealed with glee.

The tiny alligator heard his name and turned around to see his master smiling at him. He blinked unevenly before plodding into the thick brush of the forest.

"Gummy! Wait!" she cried and took after him. By the time she crashed into the flora of the Everfree, she couldn't see hide nor scale of the little critter.

"Gummy! Come back!" she called, hoping he would respond, "If you come back I'll get you some more of those animal crackers you like!"

Her temptations went unanswered. She continued to call out his name and promise him increasingly ridiculous things for his return, including switching places with him. After a couple of hours she walked into a clearing, and a Gummyless future was looking very certain. With tears in her eyes she slowly walked to an old and decrepit well which stood at the top of a small hill. She slumped on the edge of it, lazily pushing a pebble into the dark abyss below.

"Gummy...where did you go?"

* * *

Mabel laughed as she and Soos launched oversized bottle rockets into the air from a giant novelty tin can they found in the trash.

“Woah! That was a good one! I think you started a fire downtown,” Soos said, ignoring the fact that he had been rendered temporarily blind from the bright explosion. Waddles oinked in agreement, his pig brain completely enamored by the bright lights and loud sounds.

Mabel picked a big fat red rocket out from the pile they had amassed in a wooden crate, “This one's called the 'Oblitocrusher'!”

“Oooh,” awed Soos.

“The little label says it's banned in 122 countries.”

“That's how you know it's fun!” Grunkle Stan called out from his grill.

At this point Dipper emerged from the house, holding underarm the thick book that he had discovered on his first day in Gravity Falls, “What's going on out here?”

Stan waved at his great nephew. “Happy Independence Day, Dipper!”

“Uh, Grunkle Stan? It's not the 4th of July.”

“Not that Independence Day! Back in the 1899, Gravity Falls voted to secede from the Union and become the Glorious Republic of Gravelfallia!”

“...You're kidding.”

“They voted themselves back in a month later after the novelty wore off. But I respect our history! I respect it so much that I let my niece play with light artillery!”

Mabel and Soos lit the Obliterocrsuher, which flew off into the backyard and exploded into a skull-shaped mushroom cloud from behind the shack.

"C'mon Dipper!" Mabel replied pulling out another rocket. The one she retrieved was pure black, covered in a decal of a demon riding a flaming motorcycle made of bones. "These fireworks are awesome!"

"I'll...pass," he said before heading back inside.

Soos set the fuse on the next rocket, sending it screaming into the air. It flew higher than most and detonated hundreds of meters above the yard. The explosion effect was a curious one: two giant glowing strips of bacon, and a sizzling sound produced by the leftover burning gunpowder.

Waddles took one look at the display and squealed, darting off in the opposite direction of the sky meat.

Mabel took chase. "Waddles, wait! The rocket didn't mean it!"

Soos shrugged before setting up another missile, and Grunkle Stan laughed quietly to himself, "Man, that pig really wouldn't want to know what I'm cooking right now!"

Mabel chased Waddles around the house a few times before becoming winded. The pig's fat betrayed his speed, and Mabel would need outside assistance if she was to catch him before he ran away. She went inside the house, where Dipper was sitting in Grunkle Stan's recliner, his nose buried deep within his book.

The current passage that Dipper was reading was fascinating:

“Therefore, I have come to the conclusion that Gravity Falls lies in a particularly weak area between dimensions. So weak, in fact, that a tunnel or hole dug to certain specific dimensions could become a two-way wormhole. I believe I may have found just such a portal, which is—”

“Dipper!”

He looked up from his book to see Mabel clutching the doorway frame, gasping for breath.

“Bacon. Fireworks. Running.”

“You need help catching Waddles?”

Mabel nodded weakly. Dipper closed his book but still carried with him as they both walked outside. Waddles was still circling the house at very unpiglike speeds, and had started forming a small groove around the Mystery Shack. Soos was too enchanted by the fireworks to lend any assistance and Stan was lazy, so they were on their own.

Dipper outlined a plan where he would stand it Waddles' way, which would cause the pig to turn around. Then Mabel would jump on him and end his little marathon. Short and simple.

They waited until Waddles was on the other side of his track to take up positions. As expected, Waddles came barreling around the house until he saw Dipper in front of him. He skidded and attempted to run the other way, and Mabel jumped on top of the swine.

“Gotcha!”

Mabel couldn't celebrate just yet, though. Instead of giving up, Waddles ran off toward the woods with Mabel still clutching onto him. She screamed for help all the way as Dipper ran off after them, all three fading into the thick pine trees.

“Shouldn't we, like, help them?” Soos asked.

Stan pointed his spatula accusingly towards Soos, “Hey, a summer spent not screaming for help on the back of a runaway pig is a summer wasted."

Soos scratched his neckbeard thoughtfully, “True, true.”

Meanwhile, Waddles was expertly dodging Dipper's every attempt to catch him, weaving in and out of the increasingly dense shrubbery. Dipper almost considered dropping his book to gain speed, but it was too valuable to ever let out of his sight. Mabel was still crying for assistance when Dipper chased the pig through a wall of vines and dead branches, which led to a small open area in the middle of the woods.

Mabel finally let go when Waddles slowed down slightly, plopping right next to a ruined mine shaft that was strangely situated in the exact center of the clearing. Waddles continued to run circles in the field but Dipper ignored him as he went to his sister's aid.

“Mabel! Are you okay?”

“I'm a princess! Are you a princess too?” she mumbled, her eyes rolling.

That wasn't a completely odd response from his sister, and he sighed in relief. He looked up at Waddles, who showed signs of fatigue, “I guess I'll just wait here until he tires himself out.”

Dipper sat down and placed his sister's head on his lap before opening his book to kill time. He continued from the place he left off, where the mysterious author was talking about some kind of portal. He turned the page, which had the sketching of an old mine shaft, which was circled with writing alongside it.

_“This is it! I've seen things emerge out of here that defy the limitations of imagination. This old silver mine shaft must lead to a world profoundly different form our own, but sharing enough physical laws to allow free access between the two. It seems all someone or something needs to do to go to the other side is simply fall down the portal._

_Tomorrow, I'll begin my expedition into the this strange land. If the journal ends here, well, you can guess what happened to me.”_

The sketch prompted Dipper to look behind him. The shaft in the clearing looked exactly like the one in the drawing. It was the one in the drawing. Before he had an opportunity to rise up and inspect it, Mabel began to come to and she rose up, holding her head.

“What year is it?” she asked before turning to the still-rampaging beast, “Waddles is one very fit pig.”

Dipper ignored her and was leaning over the rotten wooden shaft, peering into the darkness below, “I can't see anything...”

Just then, a strong gust blew from behind Dipper, sending his trademark hat off his head and down the mine shaft, prompting a panicked “oh no!”. He watched helplessly as it tumbled down the cavern and was swallowed by the inky blackness.

* * *

Pinkie Pie was still looking down into the well, the dark waters at the bottom just barely visible. She was trying to remember all the good times she had with Gummy, because it seemed like they were at an end. As she recalled all tickly bitings the alligator had ever given her, she heard a squeak. She could hardly believe her eyes when she glanced up and saw Gummy perched on the opposite side of the well, looking at her with vacant eyes.

“G-Gummy!” she shrilled with joy, and attempted to grab him from the other side of the well, “Come to Pinkie! She'll take you out of this mean old forest!”

The alligator stood still. He certainly didn't point out that in her haste, Pinkie Pie was starting to lean over the side of the stone well. He was almost within reach of Pinkie when her front end began to tilt ominously downward. When she was well past the point of return, Gummy looked down the well.

Pinkie looked too, and realized that she no longer had any part of her body actually hanging onto the well. She was floating in mid-air, and gravity was just about to catch up with her.

“Whoops...” was all she was able to say before plummeting into the dark chasm, her caterwauls echoing up the well walls until they finally faded away. Oddly enough, there was no splash.

Gummy blinked.

* * *

Dipper sat with his arms folded as he watched Waddles make his rounds. How much energy did that animal have?

“We should make pig riding a sport!” Mabel said, “we could make gazillions.”

Mabel's business proposition was cut short when another rocket soared into the air and exploded into the shape of sliced ham. Waddles saw it and immediately switched directions away from it, and right towards Mabel and Dipper.

The twins dodged out of the way as the pig crashed into the side of the mine shaft, collapsing it. The pig flew down the shaft, wailing all the way.

* * *

Pinkie and Waddles were falling in darkness. Pinkie up, Waddles down. As they both screamed on their respective journeys, they did manage to catch sight of each other in the black void, gaining eye contact for just a moment before their speeds separated them. Neither of them had time to contemplate the strange nature of their fellow traveler when bright points of light quickly came upon them, engulfing them.

* * *

Waddles was promptly spat out of the well with Gummy still on the well's edge. The pig oinked and walked off into the forest. Gummy crawled off the well and followed.

* * *

Mabel was rocking in a fetal position with her brother trying to console her and had no time to react when the mine shaft produced a pink object which shot out of the well, did a small arc, and landed right right beside the both them with a plop. It then opened its large eyes and smiled. Mabel was pretty much convinced that she had gone insane from the loss of her pig when it spoke:

“Hi, I'm Pinkie Pie! Did a little alligator follow me through that hole?”


	2. Incredible Introductions

"Gummy! Are you down there?"

Pinkie continued to call for her pet down the mineshaft. She asked variations this question for a few minutes, tilting her head every few questions or so to get a better look. While she did manage to get the attention of a few spiders, her treasured cold-blooded friend was nowhere to be found.

Eventually deciding that her valued pet was indeed not in the hole, she pulled her head and looked at the two strange creatures she had met when she first tumbled out. They were too shocked at first to answer where her pet might have gone, but they seemed to have recovered somewhat.

The male-looking one held some kind of thick book under hairless arms. He no had scales or claws to speak of and almost seemed to be studying her. Eggheads came in all sizes, she guessed.

The other one seemed to be the female variety of the species, and the same size as the male. She was wearing a light blue (and very oversized) sweater with the picture of a pink bow in the middle. Unlike the suspicious stare of the other alien, this was was looking at her with awe. It stepped forward, its eyes still huge with wonder.

"Oh. My. Gosh."

It suddenly lurched forward and snuggled her, "You are _adorable_!"

The male lifted a finger, "Mabel, you don't even know what that thing is. It could be a monster or an alien or some eldritch—"

Mabel let go and frowned at her brother, "Dipper! Don't you know a magic horse when you see one?"

Pinkie raised a hoof, "Actually, I'm a pony!"

"Even better!"

Pinkie clasped her face, "Ohmygosh! I didn't even introduce myself!" She pulled a kazoo out from a behind her, blowing a note before breaking out in dance and song.

 

_♩ Hello! Hello! Hello! My name is Pinkie Pie! ♩_

_♩ I'm so very glad to meet you both, of this I can't deny! ♩_

_♩ We'll have so much fun together, just you wait and see! ♩_

_♩ And even though I have no idea where I am or where Gummy is and I'm probably lost forever I can definitely say that our friendship was meant to be! ♩_

 

She finished her song with a powerslide, breathing heavily before the two twins, "I'd normally be covered in cake batter at this part. Oh well!"

Mabel was overcome with emotion and sat down with tears in her eyes, "That was beautiful."

Dipper nodded. "I gotta admit, it was impressive."

Mabel snapped out of her amazement and grabbed Pinkie, pressing the pony's eyes against hers, "Waddles! Did you see Waddles down there?"

"I saw a pig. He didn't look like he was having fun."

"Wait," Dipper interjected, "Where did you see Waddles?"

Pinkie pointed toward the well, "In there, I think. I fell down a well in the Everfree Forest."

"And Waddles fell down the shaft here! If you came out this end, Waddles must've come out the other!"

Mabel looked between the two, "So Waddles is...?"

"Waddles probably came out the other end of wherever that hole leads."

Mabel immediately began stomping toward the shaft before Dipper stopped her. "Wait! The book says either side of the hole can only transport stuff once every day or so."

"No Waddles?"

"Not until, tomorrow, at least."

Mabel relaxed, "Eh, least I know where he is. He'll stay put until we rescue him."

Pinkie pointed toward the shaft, "The other side of the hole is in the Everfree Forest. There's a lot of dangerous stuff there."

Mabel dismissed Pinkie's concerns, "Waddles knows how to take care of himself. He'll probably protect your alligator too. He's a tough pig," she said before raising a mighty fist and a thunderclap sounded out of nowhere, "A _warrior_ pig!"

"Anyway..." Dipper interrupted, "Welcome to Gravity Falls, uh, Pinkie Pie?"

"Yep!"

"I'm Dipper, and this is my sister Mabel."

Mabel came up to Pinkie, grabbed her hooves, and began to jump. "We're gonna have so much fun! We can go fishing, or annoy Grunkle Stan, or play video games, or eat candy until we barf!"

"Oooh! I like that last one!"

Dipper smiled. This pony-thing seemed harmless enough as it hadn't tried to kill them so far. Heck, it even seem kinda friendly. Mabel continued to rattle off activities when Soos emerged from the trees, calling for them.

"Mabel? Dipper? Where are you guys? Okay, I'll make it simple: one scream for you got eaten by bears, and two screams for you got horribly mauled by werewolves!"

Dipper waved his arms, "We're over here, Soos!"

"How did they escape the werebears?" Soos asked himself as he walked over to the twins, who had a strange and colorful new companion with them. "Hey guys. What's that? Looks like some kinda camel."

"I'm a pony!"

"She's a pony!" Mabel affirmed with hands on her hips.

Soos picked up Pinkie by one of her hind legs and investigated her closely. The equine didn't mind at all, laughing as the manchild poked her sides to check her authenticity, "Woah, you're really light. Are you made out of marshmallows or somethin'?"

"Just 120% Pinkie Pie!"

Soos let her go. "Works for me. We should probably head back to the shack. Your friend comin' with?"

Mabel and Pinkie nodded and both bounced behind Soos as they traveled to the Mystery Shack, with Dipper alongside them. On the way, Pinkie got filled in on the strange new land she was in by Dipper.

"I'm where?"

"Gravity Falls, Oregon."

"We're in somebody's organs?"

"No! Oregon's a state."

"A wha?"

"States are part of the USA."

"What's the oosa?"

" The United States of America! It's a country. You're in it right now."

"Ohhhhh...do you have a princess?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"We just don't."

Mabel jumped, "Ooh! Ooh! I could be the princess! I'm already a congressman!"

"I'd vote for her," Soos said.

"We don't vote for princesses!"

"Wait, what's a congressman?"

Dipper was saved from a political argument when the Mystery Shack appeared in front of the thick pines. Grunkle Stan was in the front yard, apparently getting ready to ignite one of the rockets. As they drew nearer, Mabel whispered to Pinkie Pie.

"Pssst. Ponies don't normally talk around here. You might wanna do the dumb animal routine."

Pinkie responded with a motion of zipping her lips and a wink, and the laughing of Grunkle Stan washed over the gang as they approached him. As they drew closer, they realized that Stan wasn't trying to light the rocket, but was attaching something to it. Something struggling and snarling.

It was none of other than 'Lil Gideon, now firmly attached to a rocket with several bands of duct tape.

"C'mon, Gideon! You tried the 'sneak into my house under the cover of fireworks' thing last year."

Under strain, Gideon responded. "And I almost got in this time, too! You're letting your guard down, Stanford!"

"Yeah, yeah," Stan grumbled before he set the rocket on its side and kicked it. The rocket careened through the air, kicking up a plume of dirt as it hit the ground and rolled down the dirt road leading to the shack.

Gideon's voice cried out as it rolled away, interrupted every time his face rolled to the bottom and hit the ground, "Cuuuurse youuuu Standford Piiiiiiines!"

Stan dusted off his hands before turning to the group. "Crazy little munchkin. Oh hey. Did you catch, uh, Windle?"

"Oh, he's around," Mabel said and patted Pinkie on the back, "In the meantime, we found a pony!"

Pinkie whinnied in a perfect imitation of a horse, her pupils now wide and brainless.

"Huh. Looks like some kind of camel. Okay, have fun. Don't let it go on the carpet," Stan grunted as he returned to his grill and started using a turkey baster to drip gasoline into the fire inside.

All four of them went inside the shack, and as soon as they were in the door Pinkie returned to normal.

"What should be do first?" Mabel asked Pinkie.

"Video games!" answered Soos.

"Candy!" answered Pinkie Pie.

"Let's do _both._ " Mabel said.

Soos looked shocked, "You're a madwoman, Mabel! That's why you're the brains of this operation!"

All three of them celebrated by cheering and ran into the living room. The sounds of crunching candy and exploding aliens soon poured out of it.

Dipper stepped outside for a moment to check on Grunkle Stan; he didn't want to have to explain why their new pet could talk. As luck would have it, Stan had fallen asleep at the grill, his snores smothered by the cracking of burning bacon. He probably wouldn't be awake for another few hours or until the grill caught fire.

With the threat of discovery minimal, Dipper went into the living room to read, at the same time keeping a close eye on Pinkie Pie. She seemed nice, but he didn't trust her completely just yet. As the bright pink Space Marine that Pinkie had chosen as her avatar slew another green-skinned monster, Dipper decided to ask a few questions. After all, Pinkie had done the same to him.

"So Pinkie. Where are you from?"

Pinkie somehow managed to keep playing the game with the same skill as she turned to Dipper to answer him, "Equestria."

"And you came here by yourself?"

"Yep!"

"And nobody sent you?"

"Not unless you count me!"

Her answers did seem sincere, and Dipper's fears that she might be some kind of spy where dampened somewhat. Dipper had no more questions and let Pinkie return to her game with Soos and Mabel.

Soos' overweight yet heavily-armored character had fallen early in battle from a stray spaceship landed on him, leaving Mabel's yellow-clad soldier with a kitten helmet and Pinkie's pink trooper to finish the job. They fought valiantly, crushing all the xenos in their path until they came face-to-face with the final boss, a space warrior like them but covered in black spikes and a deadly aura.

"Aw man, me and Dipper never got this far!" exclaimed Mabel as she and Pinkie did their best to slay the chaotic monster.

"For da Grand Duke!" Pinkie's space marine exclaimed as he charged with his chainsaw rifle before the final boss nonchalantly vaporized him, turning the once proud metahuman into a pile of ashes.

"Cleanse all x—" Mabel's character managed to utter before he too was obliterated by a black hole being summoned in front of him.

**"YOU LOSE!"** a cheery taunting voice told them, with bloody text overlaying the screen that said the same. The television screen then exploded, leaving all four of them staring at a smoking piece of electronic equipment.

Mabel stood up and dropped her controller, "That game cheated anyway. Come on Pinkie, let's go have _ultra adventures_!"

"Yes!" Pinkie shouted in agreement, and they both bolted out the back door to unleash untold mayhem upon Gravity Falls.

Soos had already knocked himself into a candy coma, so Dipper was left in peace to read his book. Now if he could only figure out where Equestria was...

* * *

Pinkie and Mabel jumped around on the springy mattresses of the Mattress Kingdom, occasionally passing each other and high-fiving in mid-air. The both laughed and giggled as they performed increasingly complex stunts and Mabel had disregarded her own advice and freely talked with Pinkie Pie, each of them daring each other to do one stunt or another.

The lowly mascot of the place ran around in futility trying to stop them, slowed down by his cumbersome king costume. He did almost manage to catch Mabel when Pinkie bounced off his head, sending him against a stack of mattresses still awaiting storage. Like a gruesome game of jenga, the futons all shook and began tumbling down top of him. Only a single shaking hand stuck out of the pile as his cries for help were muffled by the bedding.

"What," Pinkie said, continuing her sentence on the next jump, "now?"

Mabel thought about their next destination, taking on very introspective poses at each high mark of her hops before she had a solution, "I know! The city dump!"

Pinkie got off the mattress and took position as Mabel flipped several times off hers and landed on the pony's back. She then snatched the scepter next to the buried employee, and pointed it ahead.

"For fun!" Mabel declared, and Pinkie reared and ran out of the store with her friend in tow.

* * *

And Pinkie galloped down the street, a thought occurred to Mabel. Pinkie had mentioned Gummy, which she assumed was her pet or friend of some sort.

"Pinkie?" Mabel asked, and Pinke's head rotated like an owl.

"Yeah?"

"Aren't you worried about Gummy?"

"Nah, he's okay. I didn't feel it at first, but my Pinkie Sense tells me he's alright!"

As if on cue, her tail twitched. A potted plant fell out of the sky and hit Robbie square on the head as he was crossing the street. It twitched again and another potted plant appeared out of nowhere, which headed straight for Manly Dan as he was exiting the bar. Just as it was about to hit him, he swiftly grabbed it and crushed between his massive fingers, dust slowly floating out the bottom of his clenched fist.

"Nobody sneaks up on Manly Dan! Not even plants!" Manly Dan roared.

* * *

"Why did Pinkie have to choose _today_ of all days to go missing!?" Twilight screamed in her jail cell. She buried her face in her hooves as Applejack tried to comfort her.

"Now Twi, there's no way even Pinkie could've known that Queen Chrysalis and King Sombra would have come back at the same time, _and_ Discord would join 'em."

"It's just, If we had all the Elements, we could have stopped them."

A magical-chain-bound Princess Celestia shook her head, "Even the Elements wouldn't have saved us, Twilight. Our only hope now is—"

All the ponies in the cell paused as they heard sings of struggle above them, and a loud clunk. A changeling with a knot on his head rolled down the stairs.

A halo of light seemed to appear around the familiar pig as he walked down the staircase.

"Waddles!" all the ponies cried in unison.

Waddles carried the key ring in his mouth, and with an oink he jumped up and unlocked their cell door. The magical barriers around the cell shattered; Celestia's chains untied themselves and fell to the floor with a rattle. Not wasting a moment, they all ran up the stairs with Waddles leading them.

Gummy, in the meantime, was busy chewing on the KO'd changeling's head. It didn't bother him that Waddles was receiving all the credit for their quest. As long as he had someone to follow and heads to bite, he was happy.

* * *

By the time they had arrived the dump, Soos had woken back up and joined them on their quest for merriment. Mabel quickly assembled a fake racer crafted together from discarded sheet metal and car parts. She provided her own sound effects as she steered the cracked bowl that acted as the steering wheel. Soos provided commentary using an old cup as a microphone.

"And in 1st is Car No. M, a crowd favorite! Mabel 'Mad Dog' Pines has absolutely dominated the racing scene this year, coming in first in every competition she's entered, and in a few she didn't. She is now fifty laps ahead of every other racer, and it looks like this is going to be another easy victory for—what's this?"

Pinkie Pie galloped up besides the stationary pretend racer and ran in place alongside it.

"I don't believe it, folks! Pinkie 'Reddish White' Pie had broken out of the pack and is now threatening to overtake the lead!"

Pinkie slowly moved forward and backwards while still maintaining the same galloping speed, creating the simulation of a hotly contested competition.

"It's Pinkie Pie! It's Mabel! Pinkie! Mabel! Pink! Mabe!" Soos cried, now on the edge of his seat. He jumped off and grabbed the finish line, which was an old 2x4 with black and white squares painted on it. With the cup still in his hand he sat the board in front of the two as he continued to announce, "I've never seen anything like it, folks! It's gonna be a photo finish!"

Mabel got up from her car and dove toward the board, and Pinkie did the same. When the dust settled, Soos closely inspected Mabel's hands and Pinkie's hooves to see who was farther over the line. After some deliberation he lifted both of them, "It's a tie!"

"That means we both win!" Pinkie cheered.

Still held up by Soos, Mabel pointed towards another part of the town, "Let's go to the park! I'll race you there!"

Soos let go of both of them, but Pinkie seemed hesitant to go. "Only race?"

_"With our eyes closed."_

"You're on!"

They both took off, slamming into the side of buildings and trees all the way there. As they stumbled through town, a vengeful eye watched them.

"So, Mabel Pines," 'Lil Gideon hissed in his genteel southern drawl as he observed them through his telescope, "you found yourself a lil' ol' pony friend, instead of _'lil ol'_ me."

He looked towards his open 2, which had two pages showing various drawings and diagrams of ponies that looked very similar to the kinds of ponies from Equestria, "I think that Ms. Pie has overstayed her welcome. She's given you far too much attention that I rightly should be lavishing. It'd be a shame if she had...competition."

With that, he cackled like a madman. He stopped when the door to his room opened and his father peeked his head inside.

"Gideon," he asked innocently, "would you like an apple pie?"

"Yes, father."

Bud closed the door, and Gideon resumed his evil laughter.


End file.
